1. PRISON MANAGEMENT PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE 1 71 22 Prisoner assessments should be comprised of three different considerations: determination of the risk a prisoner poses, an assessment of a prisoner’s individual needs, and what is often called “sentence planning”, which includes the activities, such as rehabilitation programmes, that a prisoner should undertake during their sentence. The purpose of each of these considerations is different and should be assessed on an individual basis using appropriate tools. Each prisoner’s assessment should be regularly reviewed and updated as part of an ongoing process. Reviews allow a prisoner’s risks, needs, sentence planning and classification to be reassessed at regular intervals. Prisoners should be classified according to the results of their assessments. The security measures they are subjected to should be the minimum necessary to ensure their safe custody. Assessments are usually a two-tiered process: first, they ensure that prisoners are allocated to a prison facility that has an appropriate security level (classification); and, second, they determine the allocation of a prisoner within a specific facility (risk and needs assessments and sentence planning). CONTEXT: RESPONSIBILITY FOR DETERMINING SECURITY REQUIREMENTS [1.7] The ICPS has noted that “[i]n some countries the judge who passes sentence specifies the security of the regime in which the prisoner should be held. In other countries prisoners who are sentenced to life imprisonment or who are sentenced under a particular law are automatically held in the highest security conditions, regardless of any personal risk assessment. This is not the best way of determining levels of security. It is for the judicial authority to determine the appropriate length of sentence for an individual crime but it is better that the prison authorities should be responsible for determining the security requirements using professionally agreed criteria.”32 Classification should not be based solely on the nature of the crime committed or the sentence handed down (e.g., life imprisonment). Risk assessments 72 Risk assessments should effectively detail the risk a prisoner poses, including the danger he or she poses to others or to the overall safety and security of the prison, violence, and her or his risk of escape. Risk assessments should also include risks prisoners are exposed to themselves. 73 Assessment tools cover four main areas of interest: criminal history, factors relating to lifestyle, personality and issues relating to drug or alcohol dependency. However, care must be taken to ensure that prisoners’ needs are not misinterpreted as risk factors. For example, mental health needs are often wrongly interpreted as risk factors, leading to a higher than necessary security classification. Additional assessment factors might be added depending on the crime committed by the prisoner, for example sexual offences or partner violence. 74 Elements of risk assessments include “the nature of the offence; the risk of the prisoner escaping, or attempting to escape; the risk of the prisoner committing a further offence and impact on the community; any risk the prisoner poses to prison management, security and good order; any risk the prisoner poses to the welfare of himself or herself and any other person; the length of the prisoner’s sentence or the maximum sentence applicable to the offences in respect of which the prisoner has been charged; and any other matter considered relevant to prison management, security and good order and the safe custody and welfare 32. A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management, ICPS, op. cit., note 29, p. 63. Guidance document on the Nelson Mandela Rules